BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Beatles Abbey Road cigarette airbrushed Tuesday, 21 January, 2003, 18:40 GMT Beatles Abbey Road cigarette airbrushed The Beatles were all heavy smokers in the 1960s United States poster companies have airbrushed the classic Beatles Abbey Road album cover to remove a cigarette from Paul McCartney's hand. The move was made without the permission of either McCartney or Apple Records, which owns the rights to the image. It seems these poster companies got a little carried away Apple Records spokesman The original copy shows a barefoot McCartney third in line on the famous road crossing holding a cigarette. But politically correct US poster companies have airbrushed out the offending cigarette, to the delight of anti-smoking campaigners. "We have never agreed to anything like this," said an Apple spokesman. "It seems these poster companies got a little carried away. McCartney came up with the original idea for the sleeve "They shouldn't have done what they have, but there isn't much we can do about it now." The move comes 14 months after guitarist George Harrison died from cancer, which he blamed on smoking.

All of the Beatles were heavy smokers during the 1960s and 70s. The 1969 image has been a poster classic since it was taken near Abbey Road studios in north London, where the group recorded most of their music. The shot is one of pop's most controversial album covers. Photographer Iain Macmillan was given just ten minutes to take the picture outside the studios. He balanced on a stepladder and took six photographs of the four walking across a zebra crossing. Death myth It was McCartney who selected the cover shot. He had, in fact, come up with the original idea for the sleeve and had presented Macmillan with a sketch for it. A myth suggesting that Paul McCartney had died in a car crash and been replaced by a look-a-like grew up around the picture soon after it was released. Clues could supposedly be found in the image. The white-suited John Lennon symbolised the preacher heading the funeral procession, while the bare-footed McCartney was the corpse. According to the rumours, proof positive of the impostor theory was the fact that Paul was holding a cigarette in his right hand, despite being left-handed.

See also: Abbey Road Brush Off — Feature Story Abbey Road Brush Off ABBEY ROAD COVER ART GETS THE BRUSH OFF United States poster companies have airbrushed the classic Beatles Abbey Road album cover to remove a cigarette from Paul McCartney's hand. The move was made without the permission of either McCartney or Apple Records, which owns the rights to the image. The original copy shows a barefoot McCartney third in line on the famous road crossing holding a cigarette. But politically correct US poster companies have airbrushed out the offending cigarette, to the delight of anti-smoking campaigners. "We have never agreed to anything like this," said an Apple spokesman. "It seems these poster companies got a little carried away. They shouldn't have done what they have, but there isn't much we can do about it now." All of the Beatles were heavy smokers during the 1960s and 70s. The 1969 image has been a poster classic since it was taken near Abbey Road studios in north London, where the group recorded most of their music. The shot is one of pop's most controversial album covers. Photographer Iain Macmillan was given just ten minutes to take the picture outside the studios.

This poster from AllPosters.com seems to be missing something. He balanced on a stepladder and took six photographs of the four walking across a zebra crossing. It was McCartney who selected the cover shot. He had, in fact, come up with the original idea for the sleeve and had presented Macmillan with a sketch for it. A myth suggesting that Paul McCartney had died in a car crash and been replaced by a look-a-like grew up around the picture soon after it was released. Clues could supposedly be found in the image. The white-suited John Lennon symbolised the preacher heading the funeral procession, while the bare-footed McCartney was the corpse. According to the rumours, proof positive of the impostor theory was the fact that Paul was holding a cigarette in his right hand, despite being left-handed. NOT A SECOND TIME? This is not the first time that a cigarette has been airbrushed from Paul's hand. In the 30th Anniversary Reissue of "I Want To Hold Your Hand" in 1984, the cigarette that Paul is holding on the cover sleeve is magically gone.

The picture sleeve to "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was the first Beatles picture sleeve, even though other companies had released singles prior to its release. There are no authentic picture or title sleeves to "Please Please Me" (Vee Jay 498) or "From Me to You" (Vee Jay 522). The Original Cover Bytes: Abbey Road - Cover Abbey Road - Cover The sleeve photograph for the Beatles’ Abbey Road album is one of the most widely known photographs in the world. Some facts and trivia: Abbey Road is the eleventh studio album released by the Beatles and their last recorded, though Let It Be was the last album release before the band split up in 1970. Abbey Road was recorded and released in 1969. Although the album is regarded as one of the Beatles’ most tightly constructed albums, the group was barely operating as a functioning unit at the time. Members had fallen out and some were not speaking to others. Producer George Martin had prevailed upon them to do a further album after work on the proposed Get Back album, later released as Let It Be, had not gone well.

Speaking on the Beatles’ Anthology, the survivors of the Beatles said that they felt this was going to be their last album, hence they set aside their differences and determined to “go out on a high note”. The cover shows the group walking over a zebra crossing, single file, Lennon in the lead. Only McCartney is barefoot and he is holding a cigarette. The design is taken from a sketch prepared by McCartney, to which the photographer, Iain MacMillan, had added a detailed illustration: The zebra crossing is outside the EMI Studios in Abbey Road. In 2010 the zebra crossing and the studios were granted heritage status for “cultural and historical importance”. The zebra crossing with EMI studios in the background in 1969 Iain MacMillan, the photographer and a friend of John and Yoko, was given ten minutes to take the photo whilst he stood on a step-ladder and a policeman held up the traffic. The white VW, also called a Beetle, belonged to one of the people living in the block of flats across the road from the EMI studios. The number plate of the vehicle was repeatedly stolen after the album was released.

The vehicle is now on display at a museum in Germany. In 1969 an urban legend was started by American college students that Paul McCartney had died in 1966 and had been replaced by a look alike. The belief was that the Beatles’ music and photographs gave clues to the “Paul is Dead” phenomenon, so that people started looking closely for such clues and indicators. One such indicator that people found was the cover photo of Abbey Road, which was argued to be symbolic of a funeral procession: John, dressed in pure white, symbolises the preacher and heavenly body; Ringo, dressed in full black, symbolises the mourner; George, in scruffy denim jeans and shirt, symbolises the gravedigger; Paul, barefoot and out of step with the others, symbolises the corpse. Further, McCartney is holding a cigarette, often dubbed “coffin nails”, and he is holding it in his right hand when he was known to be left handed. The registration number of the VW – LMW28IF – was interpreted to mean that McCartney would have been 28 “if” he had lived, plus the letters LMW meant “Linda McCartney weeps”, a reference to Paul’s wife.

Some other photos taken at the shoot, both by McMillan and Linda McCartney, show that Paul was wearing sandals at the time, discarded for the photograph selected for the sleeve: McCartney was the person responsible for selecting the final cover photograph. One of the reasons that he selected this image was that it showed all four walking away from the Abbey Road studio, where they had spent so much of the last seven years. This was the first time that a cover contained neither the group’s name, nor the album title, just the photograph. There have been numerous parodies. Some favourites: Posted by Beatles and Bystanders – The Abbey Road sessions – Snap Galleries Limited Beatles and Bystanders – The Abbey Road sessions snapgalleries 2016-10-12T16:12:45+00:00 Project Description 8 August, 1969. A Friday. The date of one of the most famous photo-shoots in rock ‘n’ roll history. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr walk over the zebra crossing next to Abbey Road studios. There and back. Three times. Six clicks of the shutter. Just six photographs, and the shoot was over.

Three frames showing the Beatles crossing from left to right, and three walking from right to left. The same order in each of the six frames – John Lennon first in white, then Ringo Starr in black, Paul McCartney in grey, barefoot, holding a cigarette in his right hand (all three in Tommy Nutter suits) and at the back, a denim clad George Harrison. The fifth frame of six, showing a left to right traverse, was chosen as the actual cover. Abbey Road (the first British Beatles LP without the name of the band or the title of the album on the front) was released in the UK on 26 September 1969 and debuted at number 1. Rolling Stone magazine voted it number 14 of the top 500 albums of all time. The photographer – Iain MacMillan. The man behind the camera that hot August day was Scottish photographer Iain MacMillan. He had worked with Yoko Ono in 1966: he included a photograph of her in “The Book of London”, a collection of his photographs published that year.

She then commissioned Iain to document her exhibition at London’s Indica gallery, and as a result, Iain was introduced to John Lennon – establishing the Beatles connection. Subsequently, John Lennon invited Iain to photograph the Abbey Road cover. Paul McCartney had already developed the initial concept of the shoot, and in a meeting with Iain, they discussed Paul’s early sketches. On the appointed Friday, Iain only had a short time to nail it. He spent less than 15 minutes up a ladder, and they had to give way to traffic too. Because of time constraints, the shoot had been very carefully planned. Iain knew exactly what he was trying to achieve. We can see this from his hand drawn sketch of the intended result, included on the front of the exhibition catalogue: the Beatles in step, the vanishing point in the centre of the image, the viewer’s eyes drawn in by the converging lines of pavements and trees. Rare photographs for sale. During his lifetime, Iain MacMillan produced and signed a number of colour prints of the session photographs, made to the highest archival standards from the original transparencies.

Iain passed away on 8 May 2006 and signed examples of his work, made during his lifetime, are finite and very scarce. As such they are highly prized amongst Beatles collectors. Individual examples of each of the photographs come on the secondary market from time to time, and, occasionally the holy grail – a complete suite of front cover variants and the back cover photograph becomes available. We will be exhibiting a suite of Abbey Road session alternates at the gallery. This suite is extremely rare and is only being offered for sale as a complete set of six photographs (five front cover variants plus the back cover). In addition, we also have a small selection of signed and numbered limited edition photographs of individual session images, and we will also be displaying the front cover image. These photographs are in extremely short supply, and are only available while stocks last. The prices of these iconic images reflect their importance in the photographic history of The Beatles. At the gallery during the exhibition we will also be showing the complete range of Beatles books from Genesis Publications, the Abbey Road LP in Art Vinyl’s patented Play & Display frames plus the Beatles Box of Vision book and storage system.

The Beetle, Paul Cole, three decorators… The Abbey Road cover photograph is of course one of the most recognisable rock ‘n’ roll photographs of all time. The Beatles are the main event, rightly taking centre stage. They are not alone though. Other peripheral characters appear stage right and stage left on the actual album cover, and get their own fifteen minutes of fame. The man standing on the right pavement watching proceedings is American tourist Paul Cole. If you look at your Abbey Road LP or CD you’ll see him, just to the left of John Lennon’s head. On the left pavement, further back, stand three decorators, subsequently identified as Alan Flanagan, Steve Millwood and Derek Seagrove. They were all captured for posterity on the cover photograph. It wasn’t just human bystanders that became famous through an appearance on the album cover. Let’s not forget the fifth Beatle. Well, Beetle. The white Volkswagen Beetle, LMW 281F, parked up on the left achieved cult status after appearing on the album, and after selling at auction, was displayed at the Volkswagen museum in Germany. The cover shot has been discussed and analysed in depth over the years, even to advance theories of the death of Paul McCartney.

But what of the five other front cover session photographs taken that day: the three right to left and two left to right passes that weren’t used? They have been reproduced sparingly in publications over the years, but the opportunity to view them together on a wall in a gallery setting allows careful study of the contrasts and comparisons between them. How do we actually know the order that the photographs were taken? Simply because Iain MacMillan made a set of prints showing individual frame numbers alongside the images. At first glance, there are some interesting differences. Although Paul McCartney was famously barefoot on the cover, he actually appears in sandals in the first two of the six frames. He only appears with his cigarette in one frame – the actual cover. Interestingly the second Paul, Paul Cole, very nearly didn’t make it onto the cover. In the frame immediately preceding the cover image, and the frame straight after, he simply isn’t there. The other bystanders… While researching this exhibition, we have taken the opportunity to dig a little deeper.

Gallery owner Guy White explains: “Iain MacMillan’s Abbey Road session images are the holy grail for collectors of rare Beatles photographs, and the opportunity to present a complete set has given us the chance to put the individual images under the microscope. We’ve subjected them to some really rigorous analysis and delved into the dark spaces and shadows for the first time. This has revealed a whole cast of unknown characters (unknown for now at least) who could have found themselves in the same position as Paul Cole – on the cover of the Beatles’ Abbey Road LP.” “One of my favourites is a mysterious lady in a purple top who appears deep in the shadows on three of the frames, for example. Who was she? She probably doesn’t even know that she was there that day – but someone will know who she is. During our research, we have discovered a dozen other bystanders, just like her. In frame 3, a black delivery van pulls in behind the iconic white Beetle. The van only appears in one frame, then its gone. Look very closely and you can see the left arm of the delivery driver as he stands at the back of the van.

It’s fascinating to me to think that if a different frame had been chosen as the cover, some of these other characters might have been on the album sleeve. It’s also interesting to have a set of photographs with the actual frame numbers visible, so we can establish with absolute certainty the order of the images.” At least a dozen people. Who were they? We reveal their faces for the first time. They have never been studied in any depth before now, and none of them have been formally identified. For now at least, their identities remain a mystery. This is the start of their story. All these photographs repay careful study. Come and see them close up, in the flesh, at the gallery. The BEATLES T-Shirt Abbey Road Size XL The BEATLES T-Shirt Abbey Road Size XL Price: $21.00 Shipping: US-Mainland: $4.00 (more destinations) Condition: Used Payment Options: Money Order, Here is a black, lightly pre-worn T-Shirt, size XL that features a large graphic on the front of the T-Shirt front the cover art off the Abbey Road album. At the bottom of the graphic there is a date of 1999.

On the back, the words BEATLES ABBEY ROAD in white letters and what looks to be brick pavement in the background. The T-Shirt measures just under 24 inches across the chest measured under the arms and from the back of the neck band to the bottom hem is 30 inches. The Tee is 100% cotton with no holes or stains and minimal wear to the collar and seams. And just so you know... The theories were first class: The cover of Abbey Road has the four Beatles crossing the road, in a manner that is supposed to symbolize a funeral parade. John is wearing white, which is supposed to be a colour of mourning in Eastern religions, and Ringo is wearing funeral black. Paul McCartney is out of step, and holding his cigarette in his right hand when he is left-handed. Imposter! Also, on the sleeve you see a girl in a blue dress walk past. Some people felt that this represented "lovely Rita", the hitchhiker Paul was supposed to have been with at the time of the accident. Paul was also shoeless on the Abbey Road sleeve, reminding us of the custom to bury people without their shoes in some cultures.

And the best one - in the background on Abbey Road is the Volkswagen Beetle with the number plate "LMW 28IF", which is supposed to say that Paul would be 28 if still alive... However, Paul was 27 at the time. Some say that some cultures count you as 1 when you are born, and so that he would be 28 in their customs. More clues were found in "You Never Give Me Your Money". The words "1,2,3,4,5,6,7, all good children go to Heaven" - is "go to Heaven" a reference to Paul being dead? Curiously, the numbers here add up to 28. And... On July 30th 1969, The Beatles continued working on their forthcoming album Abbey Road, recording overdubs on ‘Come Together’, ‘Polythene Pam/She Came In Through the Bathroom Window’, ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’ and ‘Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight’. The Beatles began to assemble the "medley" that would make up side two of the album.

Paul McCartney told tape operator John Kurlander to discard ‘Her Majesty’, but Kurlander tacked it onto the end of the tape, about 20 seconds after the end of ‘The End’. Hearing it like this, Paul decides to keep it, including the lengthy silence preceding it. And on August 8th, 1969, the photo session for the cover of The Beatles 'Abbey Road' album took place on the crossing outside Abbey Road studios. Photographer Iain McMillan, balanced on a step-ladder in the middle of the road took six shots of John, Ringo, Paul, and George walking across the zebra crossing while a policeman held up the traffic. The band then returned to the studio and recorded overdubs on ‘The End’, ‘I Want You (She's So Heavy)’ and ‘Oh! Darling’.

Other Products from vintagetshirts: ‘Abbey Road’ Cover Art: Strolling Back to Rock’s Most Iconic Crosswalk ‘Abbey Road’ Cover Art: Strolling Back to Rock’s Most Iconic Crosswalk Chris Willman Pin it Share Prior to 1969, if you had insisted that a crosswalk would go down in history, you might have found yourself in the crosshairs of a petition for institutionalization. But a casual photo shoot on the morning of August 8 of that year made an otherwise nondescript pedestrian walkway into the stuff of legend... and a peculiar destination for millions of tourists to come. It was 44 years ago this week that John, Paul, George, and Ringo put on their walking shoes — well, three out of the four of them, anyway — and stepped outside the Abbey Road Studios where they were recording Abbey Road to take a rather determined stroll across... Abbey Road. A policeman briefly stopped traffic, so that there would be no need for a reenactment of Dustin Hoffman's "I'm walkin' here!" complaint from Midnight Cowboy.

But although you might imagine such an iconic cover was art-directed to within an inch of its life, this was hardly an elaborate shoot. Standing on a stepladder, photographer Iain Macmillan took just a handful of shots of the band walking across the lane before the Fabs got back to work. In only one of them did all four Fabs appear to be strolling in symmetry, so it wasn't a tough choice. And yet more has been read into this spontaneous image than perhaps any other album sleeve in history. When I had Paul McCartney sign my Abbey Road LP in the early 1980s, he stopped to gaze at it, as if he hadn't really even considered it since 1969, and launched into a reverie before he put his pen to it. "Remember when people were saying I was dead, and that everything here meant something?" McCartney asked. (As if I, an inveterate collector of "Paul is dead" arcana, would need any reminding, but I shut up and enjoyed the moment.) "Because I was barefoot...

and the '28 IF' license plate..." He chuckled, as if he'd just come across a particularly amusing family snapshot he hadn't seen in 15 years. Now it's been 45 years, and that cover probably still sits in more frames than any other LP jacket. It doesn't hurt that about a third of all rock fans over the age of 40 would probably name Abbey Road their favorite album of all time regardless of what cover imagery it bore. But that textless image surely has a lot to do with how Abbey Road remains the top-selling vinyl album in America almost every year, even now. (In 2012, it was knocked out of the top spot by Jack White's Blunderbuss, after being the No. 1 LP for three consecutive years prior to that.) Just imagine how much less popular the album might be if it had bore its working title — Everest, after a brand of cigarettes — and if, for the jacket art, they'd followed through on the original hokey idea of traveling to the Himalayas.

Instead, McCartney, who was largely driving the creative bus in the band's last days, came up with a simpler and decidedly more local idea, drawing a sketch "with four little stick men crossing the zebra," studio historian Brian Southall recently recalled to the BBC. In 1989, photographer Macmillan recalled the shoot for the Guardian: "I remember we hired a policeman to hold up traffic while I was up on the ladder taking the pictures. The whole idea, I must say, was Paul McCartney's. A few days before the shoot, he drew a sketch of how he imagined the cover, which we executed almost exactly that day. I took a couple of shots of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road one way. We let some of the traffic go by and then they walked across the road the other way, and I took a few more shots. The one eventually chosen for the cover was number five of six. It was the only one that had their legs in a perfect 'V' formation, which is what I wanted stylistically." You can thank Apple art director John Kosh for the textlessness. "I insisted we didn't need to write the band's name on the cover," he said.

"They were the most famous band in the world after all," although "EMI said they'd never sell any albums if we didn't say who the band was. But I got my way, and got away with it." Read More The "Paul is dead" mystique is less a part of the cover's allure than it used to be, thanks to the passage of time, and the increasing unlikelihood that a deceased McCartney was replaced by a ringer some time prior to Revolver without Ringo ever stooping to admit the ruse. But it all seemed so significant once upon a decade, starting with the license plate that had placed on that Volkswagen Beetle to hint to the world that Paul would be 28 years old IF he had survived. (McCartney was actually 27 at the time, but why quibble?) Paul was also the only one of the four to be leading with a different leg than the others — a sure sign that he was "out of step" by virtue of having shuffled off this mortal coil. And he was holding his cigarette with his right hand, even though he was a legendary lefty — easy proof of impostor-hood!

John, in all-white, was clearly the minister at the funeral; Ringo, in black, a designated mourner, or maybe pallbearer (bands always make the drummer do the heavy lifting); jeans-clad George, obviously the grave digger. Paul himself was barefoot... and because some cultures bury their dead without shoes... could it have been any clearer, even if some people didn't also see a tell-tale skull embedded in the shadows of the back cover? In fact, in some of the outtakes, McCartney was wearing a white pair of sandals, before he fatefully kicked them off. A print of one of these unused shots, which actually portrayed the Beatles walking the other direction (talk about fans having their world turned upside down!) sold in an auction last year for 20,000 pounds, or well over $30,000. If there was any real symbolism at all in the cover, of course, it was that the chosen imagery did have the band walking away from the studio where they'd made virtually all their recordings.

They were recording their final album together, and when they would do an overdub session for "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" three days later, it would mark the last time all four of them were ever in the studio together. (Three of them would reunite five months later, in January 1970, to do a bit of patch-up work for the Let It Be album.) Paul wasn't dead, but the Beatles effectively were. So maybe this was a funeral procession after all. Yet there's nothing gloomy about the album art, if you aren't looking for cryptic clues. If anything, the cover's sun-washed setting belies the optimism of Harrison's "Here Comes the Sun." Surely many of the tourists who come to London to have their picture taken crossing that same street have had to extend their stay a few days, waiting for the rain to life so they can duplicate the weather as well as the setting of their favorite cover. How does it still entrance us today? For starters, the Abbey Road crossing is one of the few in the world that has music buffs regularly checking in to its live web feed: .

If you ever wanted to see a few dozen tourists an hour almost get hit by a car, this is the site for you. "Someone's going to get mown down one of these days, there's no doubt about it," a cab driver told the BBC. But, as London's Guardian newspaper cheekily observed, "It could be worse, of course. Think of the carnage if they had named their album Oxford Street or M4." Souvenirs of the shoot are hard to come by. Fans used to steal variations on the street sign on the back cover with clockwork regularity, so subsequent replacements have long been placed out of reach. The Volkswagen on the cover sold at auction in the mid-1980s for 2,500 pounds, which seems like a steal compared to the astronomical amount it could probably go for today. The man seen standing in the background of the photo, Florida resident Paul Cole, died in 2008 at age 95. Four years prior to that, he was tracked down by Scripps and told how he came to accidentally be part of one of the most famous photos of the previous century. "I told (my wife), 'I've seen enough museums...

I'll just stay out here and see what's going on outside. I like to just start talking with people. I walked out, and that cop was sitting there in that police car. I just started carrying on a conversation with him... I just happened to look up, and I saw those guys walking across the street like a line of ducks. A bunch of kooks, I called them, because they were rather radical-looking at that time. You didn't walk around in London barefoot." It was when his wife was learning to play "Something" on the organ a year later that he recognized himself on the cover. "I had to convince the kids that that was me for a while. I told them, 'Get the magnifying glass out...'" The cover has been copied so many times that an art publisher issued a book consisting of nothing but other album covers that parodied the art. One site, , has found 193 spoofs of the artwork, from Booker T & the MGs to Ren & Stimpy to the Red Hot Chili Peppers... who went a step beyond posing barefoot to posing completely nude (except for their famous socks).

But the most celebrated parodist of all is a self-parodist: Paul McCartney, who returned to the scene of the crime for the cover of Paul is Live, a concert recording. That this was really Paul McCartney doing the reenactment was, of course, exactly what they'd like you to think. Reblog MisMatch 4 - The Beatles Abbey Road - Do You Remember? Abbey Road Abbey Road is the 11th studio album by the English rock band the Beatles, released on 26 September 1969 by Apple Records. The recording sessions for the album were the last in which all four Beatles participated. Although Let It Be was the final album that the Beatles completed before the band’s dissolution in April 1970, most of the album had been recorded before the Abbey Road sessions began. A double A-side single from the album, “Something”/”Come Together”, released in October, topped the Billboard chart in the US. Abbey Road is a rock album that incorporates genres such as blues, pop and progressive rock, and it makes prominent use of the Moog synthesizer and the Leslie speaker. Side two contains a medley of song fragments edited together to form a single piece.

The album was recorded amidst a more collegial atmosphere than the Get Back/Let It Be sessions earlier in the year, but there were still frequent confrontations within the band, particularly over Paul McCartney’s song “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”, one of four tracks on which John Lennon did not perform. He had privately left the group by the time the album was released and McCartney publicly quit the following year. Although Abbey Road was an immediate commercial success and reached number one in the UK and US, it received mixed reviews, with some critics describing its music as inauthentic and bemoaning the production’s artificial effects. Many critics now view the album as the Beatles’ best and rank it as one of the greatest albums of all time. In particular, George Harrison’s contributions, “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun”, are considered to be among the best songs he wrote for the group. The album’s cover features the four band members walking across a zebra crossing outside Abbey Road Studios and has become one of the most famous and imitated images in the history of recorded music. As of 2009, Abbey Road remains the Beatles’ best-selling album.

Listen to the Full “Abbey Road” Album in the Video Below Abbey Road Full Album – Cover Imagery The front cover design, a photograph of the group on a zebra crossing, was based on ideas sketched by McCartney, and taken on 8 August 1969 outside EMI Studios in Abbey Road. At around 11:30 that morning, photographer Iain Macmillan was given only ten minutes to take the photo whilst he stood on a step-ladder and a policeman held up traffic behind the camera. READ MisMatch 7 - Bambi In the scene, the group walk across the street in single file from left to right, with Lennon leading, followed by Starr, McCartney, and Harrison. McCartney is barefoot and out of step with the other members. Apart from Harrison, the group are wearing suits designed by Tommy Nutter. To the left of the picture, parked next to the zebra crossing, is a white Volkswagen Beetle motor-car which belonged to one of the people living in the block of flats across from the recording studio. After the album was released, the number plate (LMW 281F) was stolen repeatedly from the car.

In 1986, the car was sold at auction for £2,530 and in 2001 was on display in a museum in Germany. The man standing on the pavement to the right of the picture is Paul Cole (c. 1911 – 13 February 2008),an American tourist unaware he had been photographed until he saw the album cover months later. On the original cover, McCartney holds a cigarette; in 2003 several US poster companies airbrushed this cigarette out of the image, without permission from either Apple or McCartney. Credit: Wikipedia SEE IF YOU GOT ALL OF THEM Photo: dailymail.co.uk 1. The VW Beatle to the Left is Missing a Tail Light. 2. The Gate in the Background Has Been Removed 3. Paul No Longer Has a Cigarette in His Hand 4. Paul Has Suddenly Sprouted Shoes 5. The Lines on the Road Have Been Lengthened And in the end... Beatles 'Abbey Road' cover photo was shot 45 years ago today: Digital Photography Review And in the end...

Beatles 'Abbey Road' cover photo was shot 45 years ago today Published Aug 8, 2014 | dpreview staff Tweet The photograph on the sleeve of 'Abbey Road' by The Beatles is among the most famous images in popular music, and it was taken 45 years ago today. The debate about whether Abbey Road was The Beatles final album continues (it definitely was though, and anyone who thinks 1970's Let it Be counts is just wrong) but for a whole generation of fans, the image of John, Paul, George and Ringo walking across the street outside Abbey Road studios in London signifies the end of an era. Fans gather on the site of the iconic Abbey Road photograph on August 8th 2014 - 45 years on from the original shoot. On that day in 1969, a policeman held up traffic for all of ten minutes to allow the photographer, Ian Macmillan to get his shot (based on rough sketches made by Paul McCartney). 45 years on, and hundreds of fans gathered at the very same zebra crossing to mark the anniversary of one of rock's most famous photographs. Some of them are still there .

The Beatles Is Paul McCartney Dead? Rare Recording Rumor Hoax Billy Shears In the fall of 1969, shortly after the release of the Beatles’ album Abbey Road, a wild rumor started spreading across America: was Paul McCartney dead? The cover of Abbey Road started it all! As you look at the four Beatles, you’ll will see that Paul is the only one out of step, to draw attention to Paul. Also Paul is the only one barefoot, which allegedly is how people are buried in several countries. The Beatles are shown walking in a specific order. John dressed in white, as a religious person would be. Ringo dressed as an undertaker. Paul, shabby suited and barefoot, resembles a corpse; and finally George, in old jeans, is a gravedigger. The cover of Abbey Road is a funeral procession. A closer look at Paul will reveal something else: he's a holding his cigarette—also known as the coffin nail—in his right hand, and any Beatle maniac knows that Paul is left-handed. This is a most significant clue as who we are seeing on the cover; perhaps not Paul McCartney but in fact a replacement who filled in for Paul after his death.

Behind George Harrison appears a white Volkswagen which looks like an innocent car until one checks out the license plate: 28 IF. It means of course that Paul would have been 28 if he was still alive. The policemen on the other side of the street symbolize the police who were called to the scene of the original McCartney accident in 1966 and were paid off to hush up the whole affair. By now many of you are probably thinking of ways to discredit these clues. The Beatles themselves tried to do just that in 1969. You're wrong, you may be thinking, regarding Paul’s being 28 if he were alive in the fall of 1969. It has been pointed out that he would have only been 27, but he would have been in his 28th year of existence, and by Indian belief would be 28 as one's first year as a fetus is counted as part of one's life; and the Beatles made no secret of their fascination with Indian beliefs. The back cover of the Abbey Road LP held interesting clues also: the main “Beatles” has a crack running through it on the “s,” making the name imperfect.

The eight dots before the word Beatles when connected form the number three rather than four. When visiting the wall in 1970 there were in fact 13 dots on the wall but the picture purposely included only these eight dots. Passing through this otherwise clear photograph is a girl in a blue dress. What's the reason for this? Hold the album some distance away and observe her elbow, what will appear is the image of Paul McCartney’s profile. The back cover of Abbey Road held some great clues. Notice the girl walking in the picture in the blue dress, if you hold the album away from you and look at her arm you will see the profile of Paul McCartney. The Beatles has a crack that is running through the S making the name imperfect. If you connect the 8 dots together before the word Beatles it is the number 3 "The 3 Beatles" instead of 4. You got to admit Abbey Road was no mistake in placing weird clues for all of us to find. This album cover was staged without a doubt!

Song on the Abbey Road Album are particularly telling The Beatles Come together Here come old flattop he come grooving up slowly He got joo-joo eyeball he one holy roller He got hair down to his knee Got to be a joker he just do what he please He wear no shoeshine he got toe-jam football He got monkey finger he shoot coca-cola He say "I know you, you know me" One thing I can tell you is you got to be free Come together right now over me He bag production he got walrus gumboot He got Ono sideboard he one spinal cracker He got feet down below his knee Hold you in his armchair you can feel his disease Come together right now over me He roller-coaster he got early warning He got muddy water he one mojo filter He say "One and one and one is three" Got to be good-looking 'cause he's so hard to see Come together right now over me You will recall a description of the person having hair down to his knees. After dying a person continues to have nail and hair growth, since hair and nails contain protein which continues to grow.

The song continues, “he wears no shoeshine,” a barefoot person like Paul on the Abbey Road cover. He played “toe jam football,” rugby, which Paul played quite well. He got “monkey finger,” skinny and bony like a skeleton's. Also “I know you, you know me, come together.” According to the theorist, Paul singing from his grave. You will also recall the line “One and one and one is three.” This refers to the fact that there are now only three Beatles. The song Sun King draws his title from historical literature. The Sun King was the name given to Louis XIV of France. This powerful monarch was the subject of Alexander Dumas's Man in the Iron Mask—a piece of historical fiction about a twin brother of Louis who was sentenced to wear an iron mask to prevent his public identification. However the twin, ended up replacing the real Louis without anyone but his closest associates knowing about the switch. The whole scenario resembles the theory of Paul been replaced and the change being covered up. The finale of the album includes three songs which run into one another, besides being some of the most brilliant and tight playing in their careers. The Beatles suggest several things from the titles.

“Golden slumbers,” a long sleep; “Carry That Weight,” a corpse filled coffin; and “The End,”…no explanation needed. Now some History on The Abbey Road Album: After the near-disastrous sessions for the proposed Get Back album (later retitled Let it Be, Paul McCartney suggested to producer George Martin that the group get together and make an album "just like the old days. .. just like we used to", free of the conflict that began with the sessions for The White Album. Martin agreed to this if the band would be "the way they used to be. In their interviews for the Beatles Anthology series, the surviving band members stated they knew at the time this would very likely be the final Beatles' product, and therefore they agreed to set aside their differences and "go out on a high note." With the Let It Be album partly finished, the sessions for Abbey Road began in April, as the "Ballad of John and Yoko "/"Old Brown Shoes" single was completed. Most of the album was recorded between July 2 and August 1, 1969. After the album was finished and released, the Get Back/Let It Be project was re-examined.

More work was done on the album, including the recording of additional music (see Let It Be album). Although people often label Abbey Road as the "last album recorded by the Beatles", this is a misnomer. Songs for Let It Be were added after Abbey Road was released. However, since the bulk of Let It Be was recorded before Abbey Road, it would be wrong to label that album as the Beatles' last, either. Properly, Abbey Road was the last album started by The Beatles before they disbanded. The two album sides are quite different in character. Side one is a collection of single tracks, while side two consists of a long suite of compositions, many of them being relatively short and segued together. The main impetus behind the suite approach was to incorporate the various short and incomplete Lennon and McCartney compositions the group had available into an effective part of the album. John Lennon said several times that he favored the more polished material on side one, while Paul McCartney opined that the medley on side two was the album's best feature. Own a piece of Beatles History before it's gone forever! Original Beatles Lp's on Apple Records!

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Question: On the sleeve of the 'Beatles' album 'Abbey Road', who has a cigarette in his right hand?
Answer: PAUL McCARTNEY